Bears Injury Scare: What the Rome Odunze and D'Andre Swift Practice Exits Mean for Week 1

The Bears picked a nervous way to close their week. On Thursday, in their final practice before a weekend off, both starting receiver Rome Odunze and starting running back D'Andre Swift left the field early, a double scare with a week and a half until the season opener. The early word on both turned out to be encouraging, but the timing is what makes it worth a closer look. Here is what happened, how serious each one looks, and what it means for your Week 1 lineup.

Rome Odunze: a right-leg scare with a nervous history

Rome Odunze

Odunze came up hobbling during an install period early in Thursday's practice with what looked like a right leg injury, tried to keep going, and was removed by trainers. The reason it drew a collective breath in Chicago is history: he dealt with a stress fracture in his right foot last season, so any issue in that same area gets extra scrutiny. The follow-up, though, was calm. The Athletic's Dan Wiederer reported that preliminary indications were that Odunze should be all good, and CBS framed it as seemingly avoiding a serious setback. With a weekend off before game week and the official injury report not due until Wednesday, this reads as cautious optimism rather than a reason to slide him down your board.

D'Andre Swift: just a cramp

D'Andre Swift

Swift's scare was shorter-lived. He had been impeccably healthy all camp before pulling up during team drills and coming off the field holding his midsection, but ESPN's Adam Schefter quickly reported it was only a cramp. That is close to the best-case outcome for a late-week exit, and it leaves his Week 1 role intact. Swift enters the season as a steady RB2 in an efficient Chicago offense, and there is a path to more: with backup Kyle Monangai week-to-week because of a knee issue, Swift could handle an even larger share of the early-down and passing-down work to open the year.

The ripple effects

Both situations come with a next-man-up angle worth tracking. If Odunze were to miss any time, the beneficiaries would be receiver Luther Burden and tight end Colston Loveland, each of whom would see a target bump in a Chicago passing game that would suddenly be thinner on the perimeter. Odunze is a focal point of that passing game, so his looks do not simply vanish if he sits, they get redistributed to the next men up. On the ground, Monangai's knee is the quieter story: if he is not ready, Swift's workload only grows, and the Bears would be leaning on thin depth behind him, which pushes Swift from a steady RB2 toward the back end of RB1 conversation in Week 1. Put another way, the same practice that produced two scares also underlined how much this offense runs through Odunze and Swift.

What to do

The bottom line for Week 1 is not to overreact. Both players left practice, both got encouraging follow-ups within hours, and both are pointing toward the Bears' opener against Carolina. Keep drafting and starting Odunze as a WR2 with upside and Swift as an RB2, and do the one thing that always matters in Week 1: read the official injury report when it lands on Wednesday before you lock your lineup. If either gets a surprise designation, you will have time to pivot to a contingency instead of scrambling on Sunday morning. And if you are drafting this holiday weekend, do not let a Thursday scare talk you out of either player at his usual cost: an offense that leans this heavily on two players is exactly where you want your shares, and the small discount a nervous room creates is often the last one you will get before kickoff. For the rest of the opening-week picture, our Week 1 Start/Sit has the confident calls and the coin-flips, and the Week 1 injury watch tracks the other names worth monitoring. See where Odunze and Swift land in our rankings, and check how the best ball tool prices the Chicago skill players before your next draft.